Abstract
This paper studies an on-line scheduling in medical laboratory. The sample of a patient is regarded as a job waiting to be scheduled, and each analyzer as a machine that may analyze several samples simultaneously as a batch. The samples arrive over time, and the information of each sample is not released until the sample arrives. Each sample is given a weight in a known range to represent its importance or urgency. Thus the medical laboratory scheduling can be described as a parallel-batch on-line scheduling problem. The objective is to minimize the maximum weighted flow-time. For the unbounded batch capacity model, a best possible on-line algorithm is established for any given range of weights. Moreover, for the bounded batch capacity model, a best possible on-line algorithm is presented for the range of weights 1 to 2.
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Acknowledgements
This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 11571321, 11771406 and 11401065) and the Natural Science Foundation of Henan Province (No. 15IRTSTHN006).
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Li, W., Chai, X. The medical laboratory scheduling for weighted flow-time. J Comb Optim 37, 83–94 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10878-017-0211-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10878-017-0211-4